Brentwood Fire Dept. mourning Officer Arkell

Friday

May 16, 2014 at 3:33 PMMay 16, 2014 at 4:07 PM

BRENTWOOD — Fire Chief Kevin Lemoine has seen tragedies before, but nothing compares to what he witnessed Monday afternoon when the home where Brentwood police officer Steve Arkell was gunned down caught fire and then exploded.

Jason Schreiber

BRENTWOOD — Fire Chief Kevin Lemoine has seen tragedies before, but nothing compares to what he witnessed Monday afternoon when the home where Brentwood police officer Steve Arkell was gunned down caught fire and then exploded.

“This is probably the worst call I've ever done in 35 years. I hope it never gets any worse than this,” Lemoine said.

As members of the Brentwood Police Department try to make sense of the tragic loss of their officer, the sense of loss is just as great at the Brentwood Fire Department.

They're different departments in different lines of work, but their members respond to the same crises and share the same pain.

Lemoine and others on the fire department knew Arkell, too. When he responded to an incident, Arkell was often curious and would inquire about some of the tasks they performed at the scene.

The firefighters who responded to the scene at 46 Mill Pond Road Monday afternoon encountered a scene most aren't used to seeing in their small town.

They were surrounded by heavily armed officers and a SWAT team and were initially kept back because of the threat of gunfire from inside the house. The suspected gunman, 47-year-old Michael Nolan, was still inside.

Lemoine said firefighters were allowed in to fight the fire about 20 minutes after the explosion that leveled the duplex where Nolan lived with his father, Walter, 86.

“When we got there the whole upstairs was going, the whole right side was going. The whole place was going and starting to collapse,” Lemoine recalled.

The first to arrive at the scene with the Brentwood Ambulance were Deputy Fire Chief Joe Bird, Lt. Jon True, and paramedic and EMS Capt. Donna Vadeboncoeur.

The newest full-time firefighter and advanced EMT Ben Roesch arrived a short time later. This is the first full-time firefighting job for Roesch, who joined the fire department in September. It was his first time running a pump at a large fire.

“I learned a lot very quickly. I finally saw some of the practical issues you run into that you don't see in training,” Roesch said.

As the fire raged, Lemoine said the first priority of firefighters was to protect a house next to the fire scene.

“If they didn't let us in then, another two or three minutes, that house on the right would have been lost,” he said.

Lemoine said there were essentially four emergencies occurring at the same time that day. The first was the police shooting, which dictated what the firefighters could do because the scene wasn't safe. Then came the medical emergency associated with the shooting followed by the house fire and explosion and then several brush fires.

“My people have done an excellent job. They've handled everything they've had to handle. It was a difficult situation, but they just did what they had to do,” Lemoine said.

Like the police department, the fire department has received an outpouring of support from many other fire and emergency personnel.

Other fire departments handled calls for Brentwood in the first few days after the Monday's incident and will man the station again next Tuesday and Wednesday so the Brentwood firefighters can attend services for Arkell.

The fire station has also become the center where federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, investigators from the state Fire Marshal's Office and others have gathered when they're not out at the scene.

Many local businesses have donated food, water and other supplies needed in the aftermath of the tragedy.

“It's been overwhelming for everybody. Even the amount of support's been overwhelming,” Lemoine said.

The incident has affected firefighters and other emergency medical personnel differently. Much like at the police department, a team of counselors has been available to help the firefighters.

“We did a debriefing the other night which brings out some issues for people. Debriefings are a good thing. Even if you think you don't need it, for some people it does something to help you,” Lemoine said.

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